Wake Me Up (When September Ends)

I submitted my second round proposal for the President’s Prize this week. I will find out next Monday (the 11th, I believe) how it fared and then may jump right into planning for stage three. There are now more steps and I’ve upped the anty a bit.

So the stages (in order):

1. Turn in round one (done) 2. Round one review (done) 3. Turn in round two (done) 4. Review round two 5. Notify those who are moving on 6. Presentations 7. Review of presentations 8. Notify those who are moving on 9. Interviews 10. Review of interviews 11. Notify winners

Now, I am only *directly* able to affect numbers 1, 3, 6 and 9. So for me, I am half way there! But this is something which will not be finished until the end of November. And that’s okay. It teaches me patience. I added in working with the legislative system to get an Ohio Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill passes (or at least introduced), I’ll be presenting at two conferences and more! I don’t want to give too much away just yet, becuase I’m still refining it. Rest assured that as soon as I am finished with this process, I will tell you all about it!
But the thing is, I know I am just one person. I will try my best, because this is something I am very passionate about and I believe that I can absolutely make a difference. One raindrop raises the sea, after all.

And it is that message, that belief that makes me want to fight each day. But it still hurts my heart when I see articles like This One. Now BEFORE YOU CLICK-this is an article which is both very sad and possibly triggering. It’s a rape news story-about a high school boy.

I’m bringing this up because it is stories like this which explain the need for my project, but also ways in which I can help beyond what I originally thought.

The victim is male. He is African American. He is disabled (mentally). He is a “jock”-he played football. He is a high school student. He was bullied. This case details that the high school AND coaches hid the bullying and tried to cover up the attack. The victim was raped with a coat hanger (which was kicked several times).
The facts of this case are such that I may not have thought to cover. I know I fight to be gender inclusive-and that’s how I structured my project. But I didn’t think to include “hazing” events (such as this is alleged to be). I didn’t think to include disabilities (although I certainly want to focus on inclusive body positivity and awareness).

Perhaps the biggest thing I didn’t think about was the fact that this information (that is, my project), might actually be more necessary for the older people-the ones in charge of the students, than the students themselves. Now, I’m totally focused on students-because that is my target audience. But this is not the first case of an incident being covered up by administration at the high school level. I mean, my own state stood front and center back in 2012 becuase of the Steubenville rape-in which an unconscious girl was raped by several people-and the incident was posted to social media sites. The hacker who uncovered the high school’s involvement is scheduled for trial-because even though he was the one who cracked this wide open, hacking is illegal-but a different story for a different day.

The next couple weeks are exceptionally busy for me. I’ve got a lot of school work, I’m performing a wedding and hopefully I’m carrying ahead with the project timeline. Even so, I want to take a moment to thank you.

Thank you to everyone who shared A Call For Help. Thank you for everyone who answered that call. I know that the stories I read through were so moving, so emotional. I tried to answer each email I received-and I thank you here as well. I know these are not easy stories to tell-and I keep my word-I will not share them with others without permission. I did notice a very general theme which applied to every single story I read. And I think that if this theme were applied to more people’s daily lives, a great deal would change. I am, of course, talking about being heard and believed, treated with respect and dignity.

I’ll keep you all informed, of course. Wish me luck!

Oh, and before I forget, thank you so much, all my new followers! I’m glad you’ve come along for the journey.